1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments described herein generally relate to enterprise mobility. More particularly, some example embodiments relate to mobile application management.
2. Related Technology
In bring-your-own-device (“BYOD”) environments, users provide mobile devices, which are likely owned by the users, to interface with an enterprise. Public mobile applications may be already loaded on the mobile devices. The public mobile applications may have been purchased, accessed, or downloaded from an application store, such as iTunes. In addition, the users may seek to add public mobile applications to the mobile device by purchasing public mobile applications from the application store. The mobile devices may also be configured to interface with a user's private data such as personal files and/or private email accounts, for example. Additionally, the enterprise may load and/or provide access to private mobile applications. The private mobile applications may include enterprise email services or access to enterprise files, for example. Because the users provide the mobile devices, the users often expect to use or add the public mobile applications and access personal data. However, by using the public mobile applications, accessing personal data, and being provided access to private applications, the users may expose the enterprise to vulnerabilities including, but not limited to, malware, malicious applications, network sniffers, applications that consume excessive network bandwidth, applications that encourage data leakage, applications that reduce the users' productivity, applications with inappropriate content, applications that reduce battery life, or some combination thereof.
To manage and/or reduce exposure to such vulnerabilities, mobile device management (“MDM”) has developed. One aspect of MDM may include mobile application management (“MAM”) that includes management of the private mobile applications, the public mobile applications, and mobile risk management related to the mobile devices. For example, MAM may include features designed to “provision” one or more mobile applications. As used herein, to provision a mobile application may refer to the enterprise deeming the mobile application acceptable. That is, once a mobile application has been provisioned, the enterprise may allow the use of and/or access to the mobile application. A list of provisioned applications may be referred to as a “whitelist.” In whitelists, all mobile applications default as not included and/or not provisioned and thus the use thereof may not be allowed. Furthermore, the enterprise may have to individually provision each public mobile application included in the whitelist.
Additionally, the MAM may include an application interface similar to an application store from which the provisioned applications may be made available to users or a specific group of users. The application interface may authenticate users prior to allowing access to the provisioned applications. In addition, the MAM may monitor access and/or use of provisioned applications and/or erase non-provisioned applications from the mobile devices. Thus, the whitelist and the application interface may conflict with the expectations of the users who own the mobile devices. Moreover, the whitelists and the application interface may require significant investment of time and resources by the enterprise.
The subject matter claimed herein is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one exemplary technology area where some embodiments described herein may be practiced.